Tropic Thunder (2008)

Tropic Thunder Synopsis

In the action-comedy "Tropic Thunder," Ben Stiller plays pampered action superstar Tugg Speedman, who is cast in the biggest, most expensive war movie ever produced. He sets out to Southeast Asia with a "Who's Who" of celebrity co-stars. They include Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.), an intense, three-time Oscar(R)-winning actor; Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black), star of the popular gross-out comedy franchise "The Fatties"; multi-platinum hip-hop-star-turned-entrepreneur-turned-actor Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson); and first-timer Kevin Sandusky (Jay Baruchel). Soon after the production begins the actors are thrown into a real-life situation and are forced to become the fighting unit they're portraying, in order to find a way out of the jungle in one piece.

2008 is the summer of Robert Downey Jr. After lingering for years in amazing, critically praised movies that no one will ever see, Robert Downey Jr. is taking his considerable acting talents and using them to cash big paychecks. But he’s Robert Downey Jr., and just because he’s doing a summer blockbuster for big cash doesn’t mean he’s pulling a Brendan Fraser. Even when working for Hollywood in its most popcorn of seasons, RDJ has gone out of his way to pick the riskiest, most interesting roles the big studios have to offer.

First audiences will catch him in Iron Man as a superhero. But not just any superhero. An alcoholic superhero arms dealer. Then they’ll see him in a Ben Stiller comedy, but not just any Ben Stiller comedy, a Ben Stiller comedy in which, Robert Downey basically spends the entire movie in blackface. RDJ just can’t stop taking risks.

What’s more, his blockbuster gambles seem entirely capable of paying off. Tropic Thunder looks hilarious, like a modern day Three Amigos!, and I mean that in the best possible way (hey Chevy Chase used to be funny). Early test screening audience reviews have been extremely positive and word is that Downey’s blackface character works, in a way that’s almost impossibly, completely inoffensive. This thing may actually be funny, something that’s all too rare in a Ben Stiller movie.

Speaking of Ben, with Tropic Thunder he returns to writing and directing for the first time since Zoolander. Like his previous directorial efforts, this one looks to step outside the lines of what’s in vogue with comedy. Most of the biggest comedic blockbusters in past years have either been parodies or relationship comedies. Tropic Thunder fits into neither category, and funny or not at least it seems determined to do its own damned thing.

Today is the day when, all around the world, fireworks are ignited as people celebrate the departure of 2014 and the arrival of 2015. So it seems only appropriate that we would end our year in cinema with a bang as well:

Product placement has become an unfortunately big part of modern studio filmmaking, but there are some ads in movies that we can still appreciate: the fake ones. Rather than actually trying to tell us something, they merely exist as a fun gag or even sometimes as a plot device. And now you can see a whole bunch of them mashed together in this fantastic new supercut.

Product placement has become an unfortunately big part of modern studio filmmaking, but there are some ads in movies that we can still appreciate: the fake ones. Rather than actually trying to tell us something, they merely exist as a fun gag or even sometimes as a plot device. And now you can see a whole bunch of them mashed together in this fantastic new supercut.

One of those classic Hollywood cliches that everyone loves to use is the old fashioned “don't you die on me” moment. And what better way to rob the trope of all the emotion its built on, but to put together an amusing supercut of several prime examples.

The shorts will be distributed online, one per week, sometime last this year, with "a partner to be named shortly"-- probably something like Funny or Die, but hey, who knows what site might want to step up to the plate on this. Stiller already has some of his familiar collaborators on board, including Tropic Thunder co-writer Justin Theroux

What will we get when Stiller directs himself in an adaptation of James Thurber’s short story The Secret Life of Walter Mitty? Will it be as twisted and aggressive as Thunder or as safe as a Madagascar sequel? Thurber’s original story, first published in 1939, follows a meek protagonist with an overactive imagination.

For a long time movies that operated as middle fingers toward some previous effort were almost always straight comedy spoofs. That all changed in 1996 with Scream, a wildly successful, imaginative horror film that commented on the genre it was also firmly a part of